


Caring is not an advantage

by wilwarindi



Series: You Lost Sight On Me [1]
Category: The Walking Dead - All Media Types, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Drug Use, Future Fic, M/M, Off-screen death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-24 14:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilwarindi/pseuds/wilwarindi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Carl looked inside the room again and wasn't surprised to see that Daryl hadn't moved yet. He was still sitting where Carl had last seen him almost two hours ago. And it didn't seem like he was going to be moving soon."</p><p>Carl and Daryl are the only ones left, now forced to deal with the aftermath of Rick's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caring is not an advantage

**Author's Note:**

> The song "You Lost Sight On Me" belongs to a lovely hipster, folk singer called Micah P. Hinson. I recommend you listen to it.
> 
> This was written before third season. I originally published this story on fanfiction.net, already finished, but I'm revising parts of it, especially the second chapter.
> 
> English is my second language and I didn't ask for my Beta's help. Please share any corrections you might want to make.
> 
> I don't own the song, the characters or the zombie apocalypse.

_And you lost sight on me_  
_Whilst the wind it blows so holy_  
_As if I disappeared_  
_To thin, breathless air_  
_Drinking, bittersweet._

_And sometimes it seems  
_ _That you lost sight on me._

–––

 " _All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage."  
_ (Mycroft Holmes. BBC's Sherlock: ' _A Scandal in Belgravia_ ')

* * *

Carl looked inside the room again and wasn't surprised to see that Daryl hadn't moved yet. He was still sitting where Carl had last seen him almost two hours ago. And it didn't seem like he was going to be moving soon.

He took in the scene in front of him once again, even though it had barely changed. He studied the light, Daryl's posture, the whiteness of the sheets. The smell of dead flowers. Carl turned around after a few moments. He felt he would remember this for a while, even though he didn't really want to. It wasn't something new. It wasn't unexpected.

He decided to take a walk around the fence, just to make sure. After all these years the walkers had stopped showing up as often as they did before, but a few herds were still roaming around the country. It had been the herds what had forced them to move every time.

It had been years since they'd last seen another living person.

Now wouldn't be a bad time to see another, Carl decided. Now that it was just the two of them, Daryl and Carl. Daryl who, against all odds and expectations seemed to have been switched off his everlasting will to survive no matter the cost.

There wasn't any walker in sight, but Carl still climbed to the roof to take a look around. No, no movement apart from the trees and the clouds.

" _'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house / not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,_ ” Carl recited absentmindedly.

He had grown used to talking to himself. He sometimes quoted entire paragraphs from the few books he owned out of sheer need to use his voice and memory, or break the everlasting silence. The books had become the only distraction from the monotony in his life. Morning meant breakfast, watching and taking care of their plants; midday for lunch, more watching, more work around the field; afternoon, watching, maybe hunting a little bit with Daryl, maybe helping his father around the house, maybe a little bit of reading from the books he had read a thousand times before; then night for sleeping, while taking turns to keep watch.

It was maddening. It was life.

Carl sometimes dreamt of escaping – not that he was a prisoner, but he knew how his father would react if he had told him. He dreamt of walking into the nearest city (how he missed the cities!) or even a small town, and finding all kinds of small treasures, things that he had forgotten existed, things that he had never known before. New books. More bullets and new knives. Maybe a radio with batteries that still worked – how long had it been since he had last heard music? Not since the guitar had broken, and that had been three years ago. Maybe. It was hard to keep track of things when every day was pretty much the same as the last, and the next.

Most times, he dreamt he found more survivors; new people that were alive and had new stories to tell, who probably had a good shelter of their own. Probably even a girl around his age who would look at him like she had been waiting to see his face all of her life.

Carl was rather certain that he was twenty one years old now. He remembered his birthday used to be in April (the tenth, he thinks), but they'd lost the official count of days at the beginning of the end of the world. Now it sounded very stupid, really, keeping count of days and months, giving them names, celebrating dates like birthdays and Christmas, when in reality they were all plain days and nothing else. But he was fairly certain that he was twenty one. The next year (meaning, when the next spring came) he would turn twenty two.

Yeah, probably twenty two.

When Carl went back inside the house he didn't find Daryl in his spot and frowned. Where could he have gone to? Carl started to walk around the house, half expecting to find the other man slicing up his wrists with a kitchen knife. He didn't; instead, he found the redneck digging up beneath the old oak at the back of the house.

"Watcha doin'?" Carl asked, even though he already knew the answer. There was no reply. "Need any help?" There still wasn't any sound coming from the older man, so Carl shrugged and went back inside to go make them something to eat.

They only had what they harvested and what they hunt now. Carl had once opened a can of tuna that had expired two years after the zombie outbreak just to see what happened to it. The stench of the decaying fish had stuck to his hands for days.

Luckily enough, among his many talents, Daryl was a pretty decent fisherman. So they had been able to catch fishes when they had been living in that house near a small lake. It had been four or three years ago, before they had been forced to move out again. They were only three men against a herd, after all. And they'd found this house with a clearer view of its surroundings, so it hadn't been so bad after all.

Had they really been living for four years here? It seemed like less. And more. Like they had only been here for a few months and forever at the same time.

By sundown, Daryl still hadn't finished digging. Carl figured that the man had grown old, and that was a little disappointing. When he had first asked Daryl how old he was, Carl was surprised because he looked almost ten years younger than he really was. The past years, though, and Rick's illness had taken a toll on the redneck.

Carl wondered vaguely how much longer Daryl could survive now, if he was fifty one – probably fifty one. Carl hadn't seen someone that old survive long. Well, the only one he'd seen was Dale, really, but still, he hadn't survived much.

Maybe if Daryl died, then Carl could go back to the city and see what had happened to the world.

The night had fallen and there was still no sign of Daryl. Against his better judgment, Carl decided to go check on him – he had learnt from the very beginning that Daryl preferred to be alone when he was upset.

Daryl was sitting on the ground next to the almost finished grave and didn't look up when Carl walked his way.

"You want something to eat?" The young man asked casually.

"No,” Daryl said. His voice cracked because of the lack of use.

"You should eat something or yer gonna pass out,” Carl insisted half-heartedly.

Daryl rubbed his face. Carl wondered if he was crying. It was too dark to tell.

"Leave me alone," Dixon finally replied, more tired than angry. It didn't sound as if he was crying.

Carl shrugged again and did as he was told, entering the house and deciding to go to bed. What else was there to do, anyway? They barely had any candles left, and they saved them for emergencies. Anyway, Carl wasn't really sure where they kept said candles anymore.

–––

Next morning Carl found Daryl in his and Rick’s bedroom, sitting in the same chair he had been for the past two days now, deep asleep. His neck was twisted in some awkward position and his hands and clothes were covered in dirt.

Carl cocked an eyebrow and kept on walking towards the kitchen. When he was halfway through his breakfast Daryl showed up in the door, rubbing his neck and looking on the verge of exhaustion. He let himself fall in one of the chairs and Carl silently handed him a plate of food - smoked meat, corn, tomatoes.

Carl would kill for a box of Cheerios.

Daryl nodded and groaned as a thank you and started eating like a rabid animal. Or a walker.

"You finished digging yesterday, or do ya need help?" Carl asked after a long pause.

Daryl wiped his mouth and looked up. For the first time, Carl noticed just how big and dark the circles beneath Daryl's eyes were, just how pale and gaunt his face was.

It wasn't a pretty sight.

"What's wrong with ya?" Daryl asked, point blank.

Carl blinked in surprise.

"Do ya… Ya don't give a shit, do ya?" Daryl went on, narrowing his eyes and tightening his mouth.

"Whatcha mean?" Carl asked back, honestly confused.

"Yer… yer  _father_  just  _died_  for fuck's sake, and ya don't give a shit!" Daryl exclaimed, slamming his fists on the table.

Carl kept his face carefully blank. He wasn't scared from Daryl's outbursts anymore.

"Of course I care,” he said, even though it felt a little bit like lying.

"No, ya don't! It's like ya ain't even here! Yer just runnin' around like nothin' happened!"

"What do ya want from me? To sit there for two days, waiting for him to come back and fuckin'  _eat me_?" Carl shot back.

Daryl pulled his chair back and for a moment Carl thought he would get punched in the face. He jumped to stand up as well. Daryl seemed to refrain, then, and instead just kicked the chair before storming out of the kitchen.

"Crazy old man,” Carl huffed under his breath. But it didn't feel right.

Carl shook that sensation off and kept on eating.

–––

Rick hadn't come back after two days. Carl wasn't sure what that meant, but it couldn't be a bad thing, right? Maybe the crazy man from the CDC had been wrong. Maybe it took longer now. Maybe it had been aliens trying to conquer the world, or maybe it had been Nature's way of cutting down the numbers of those filthy humans that were destroying the planet.

Carl had lots of theories like those.

Rick hadn't come back, but still Daryl had decided to drive a knife into his head, just to make sure. It was standard protocol these days.

They put him in the ground that afternoon. It reminded Carl of way too many other burials before this one. He carefully put it out of his mind and grabbed a shovel to start filling up the grave. Daryl, who had barely talked to him ever since that morning, did the same.

When the redneck started taking longer and longer pauses between shoveling, Carl spoke to him.

"You should rest. I can finish this."

Daryl shot him a dirty look, and looked like he was going to argue. His gaze fixed on the grave for a few moments before he visibly gave up and let go of the shovel, letting it fall to the ground. He went to sit on the porch.

When Carl was finished, he turned around and saw Daryl fast asleep in the place where he'd sat down to rest.

Carl looked back at the grave and leant on the shovel a little.

"We're gonna miss ya. Especially Daryl,” he muttered.

He smoothed the dirt covering Rick's grave a little more and nodded to himself.

–––

Carl never asked how it had gone down, that thing between his father and Daryl.

He remembered the redneck scaring the shit out of him when they'd first met. He remembered Daryl fighting Shane and his recently returned father. And he remembered how, after Shane died ( _after we killed him_ , Carl corrected himself) Daryl had started hanging more and more around his father, like he had simply stepped in and taken Shane's place - although he was nothing like Shane.

Since the outbreak so many people died, including his mother and his little sister (how small and helpless and beautiful she had been!). There had been all kinds of people - good, bad, friends, foes, random strangers. Their faces blurred and their voices faded. Carl he had completely forgotten about a lot of people by now, but it wasn't so bad. He remembered his mother very well, and that memory did nothing but wear him down every time he thought about it.

People died until it was just Carl, Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, Carol and Michonne, perpetually moving and running away without any real destination, and not long afterwards it was just Rick, Daryl, Carl and Carol, and they had established in a farm house similar to Hershel's.

Until then Carl had noticed how much his father and Daryl stuck together, how they seemed to gravitate towards one another so naturally. But around that time it was the first time he had seen Rick standing so close to Daryl and giving him _that_  smile… It just was such a different expression he used with his son and everyone else. A question had risen in Carl's head and he had started to pay more attention.

Daryl was never openly affectionate, but Rick was more used to that; Carl remembered how his parents were when they were together and they were almost always touching, even if it was just lightly. And when Carl started looking for it, the little brushes, the casual contact was evident.  

Carol had disappeared around a year after they had decided to settle down. Daryl had almost gone crazy, and not for the first time. He remembered Daryl trying to go out there to find her, and his father trying to convince Daryl that they'd already looked everywhere they could. He remembered the worried look on his father's face every time Daryl went out searching for her.

Carol never came back. Carl was pretty sure that Daryl had found her, eventually, because on day he returned with a different look on his face and didn't talk about her again for a long time.

–––

Back before Carol’s death, Daryl did this thing, every once in a while, when he stormed out of the house and disappeared for almost a week. It always happened after pretty big fights with Rick.

The first time he did it, Carl thought his father would drive himself mad with anxiety. Rick had spent the first day fuming and trying to get over his anger; the second he had started to worry and went out to find Daryl. By the end of the week Rick was almost pulling out his hair. Carl remembered how he'd seen his father turn to look at the door and then out the window every five minutes. He went out every day and even kept watch most of those nights on his own.

Carol didn’t seemed half as worried. She went searching for Daryl too, but also kept the house and their defenses going along with Carl. She just said Daryl would come back eventually, or he wouldn’t. Carl agreed and kept cleaning his gun.

When Daryl had returned, unharmed and carrying a big bundle of dead animals like he had simply gone hunting and lost track of time (only for seven days in a row), Rick had walked to meet him outside the house, looking ready to punch Daryl (although he seemed to change his mind at the last minute) and started arguing with him in that cold voice Carl knew so well.

Carl had grimaced and tried not to listen.

"He’s such a moron,” Carol had sighed next to him. They had been pulling out the weeds from their little herb garden when they heard the racket.

Carl blinked. “Who?”

Carol snorted and shook her head. “Both of them I guess.”

"My dad sounds just like my mom,” Carl had commented. Carol turned to look at him with a curious (and slightly amused) look on her face.

"What do you mean?"

"She used to yell at him for going away, at first,” he had shrugged. "She would be yelling at him now, just like my dad's yelling. It's kind of… funny."

"And ironic,” Carol muttered.

Carl hadn't been sure what 'ironic' meant at the time, so he had just nodded.

His father had stayed pissed for a few more days. Carl had thought Daryl would go away again if he didn't calm down.

The next time it happened, like a month after that, Rick had tried to stop Daryl.

"Where are ya goin'? You can't run away again for a whole damn week!" His father had growled. Carl had never seen him so furious with a member of their own group.

Daryl had pushed him aside easily and took off anyway.

When Daryl came back, Rick had ignored him pointedly until he could pull him aside and talk in private. There had been no shouting this time, at least, but Carl had heard angry words go back and forth.

"Not again,” Carl had complained, rolling his eyes.

"I doubt this is the last time it will happen,” Carol had warned him.

"Yeah, I know. It's just… They're so… stupid,” Carl had huffed.

Carol had given him a strange look, but hadn't asked what he meant.

A couple weeks later, she had vanished, and all the quarrels between Daryl and Rick had been put aside.

After Daryl stopped looking, they had been forced to move out; despite how careful they were not to attract any unwanted attention their way, a heard had shown up and they moved out as fast as they could.

They always kept half their stuff in a car, just in case.

They had found a new house, the one near the lake, and established there. A month later, Daryl was storming off again and Rick was trying to stop him once more.

"Stop bossin' me around like yer wife did!" Daryl had snapped, moving away.

Rick had yanked him by the arm to force Daryl to face him. Rick had gotten on his face threateningly; and for a second Daryl seemed to shrink back on himself, eyes darting around to find the easiest way to flee.

"Don't you dare talk about her like that,” Rick had hissed dangerously.

Daryl’s shoulders squared and his jaw set on a stubborn gesture. "Then stop talkin'  _like_  her. I ain't taking orders like I'm yer pet!" He spat.

They had stood there, looking eye to eye for a long, tense moment.

"Get tha fuck out,” Rick had finally snarled.

"Gladly,” Daryl replied, moving around the former deputy to grab his things and walking out the door.

Rick had rubbed his neck. A lot of emotions were dancing on his face, and Carl stared at him, trying to decipher them all. Then his father had seen him there, and he looked almost completely defeated.

"Sorry you saw that,” Rick had said.

Carl had shrugged.

"Not the first time," was all he replied.

His father had frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"You fight a lot.” Carl stated simply. “I thought you were gonna punch him.”

Rick sighed and shook his head. "No. Last time I punched him was a long time ago.”

"You know, you do sound like mom, sometimes,” Carl pointed out.

Rick had snorted a little, but the look of grief had only intensified. "I know. I-I loved her, and I… When I worry, I remember how she used to worry," his father said. Then added, almost too quietly for Carl to hear: “I think I understand her better now.”

Daryl had come back only two days later. Both Rick and Carl were working in the garden (it was annoying how such a little piece of ground needed so much attention) when the redneck had showed up with his patient stride, like he could keep on walking forever.

Rick's hand flew to his gun as he looked around to see who it was. After he recognized the other man, he fixed his eyes in the plants. He didn't look up again, even when Daryl's shadow fell on his head.

Carl looked between them carefully.

"Saw a herd,” Daryl finally broke the silence.

Rick's back had stiffened, but he still didn't lift his head.

"Comin' this way?" He had asked.

"No."

Rick had nodded and kept on pulling out weeds.

Daryl made the gesture of backing off, and Rick spoke again.

"If you plan on doin' that again, ya better go away for good."

Daryl frowned.

"What?"

"You heard me,” Rick said. He wiped his hands on his worn out jeans before standing up and looking at the other man in the eye. "I get you need your space. I try to give it to ya. But if that ain't enough and yer gonna keep on runnin' away like this, ya better stay away."

There had been a long pause.

"Yer kickin' me out?" Daryl asked. He tried to sound angry, but there was a note of hurt in his voice he couldn't hide.

"I didn't say that. Said if ya keep runnin' away, you should go. It's your call,” Rick had shrugged.

Daryl had stared at Rick in the eye in shock, and then averted his gaze around them, shifting his weight and started gnawing on his thumb. He seemed lost.

“Fine,” he muttered.

Rick stepped closer, trying to catch his eye, but Daryl kept carefully looking away from the deputy’s face. “You wanna leave?” he asked, surprisingly patient. Daryl gave a half shrug and tried to back away, but Rick grabbed him loosely by his shirt. “You wanna _leave_? Or you wanna leave _me_? Because whatever it is… I want you here. I _need_ you here. If _we’re_ done, then fine, I can live with that. Just stop running away and tell me what you want.”

Daryl flinched. He tried to pull away again and Rick let him, but Daryl took a step back almost immediately. He hesitated for a long moment, clenching and unclenching his fists in front of him. Then, he grabbed Rick by the front of his shirt and kissed him fully on the mouth.

"Would ya really kick me out?" He asked then.

"If you run away again, yes, you bet I will,” Rick nodded.

Daryl had pursed his lips and looked away, biting his lips and still seeming worried.

"You can sulk and yell as much as you want, as long as it's here,” Rick added then. "Just… don't disappear. I worry too much."

"Ok, then,” Daryl had agreed.

He had let go of Rick and took a step back, but then the deputy had grabbed Daryl's face gently and kissed him again.

"You smell like dead squirrels,” Rick commented, wrinkling his nose.

"Well…  _yeah,_ ” Daryl retorted lamely. “And ya smell like dirt."

"Better than dead animals,” Rick shrugged and then returned to what he had been doing.

That had been the first time Carl had seen them to something openly romantic in front of him. And he wasn't really surprised, so when his father tried to talk to him about it and explain, Carl had waved him away.

"I'm not stupid, dad. I knew it was something like that."

Rick smiled. "I know you're smart, Carl. It's just… I'm sorry for not telling you sooner. It’s just been… complicated."

"It's ok. Not like it's a big deal,” Carl had assured him.

Rick hugged him with one arm.

"You are too old for your age,” he had whispered.

Daryl hadn't stormed off again. Not for entire days, at least. He would sometimes get out to the roof and sit there for hours at a time, staring at the woods. He didn't welcome company when he was up there until enough time had passed and the sight of the forest had soothed him.

–––

Not much happened for a few days after they buried Rick. Carl kept on doing the same things he did before because he knew how important it was to keep them fed and keep watch. Just in case.

Daryl did the same, only he was looking more and more tired as the days slowly crawled away. He kept guard most of the night and was out hunting most of the day. When he came back he looked at the fresh grave for a split second every time, but when Carl noticed he started counting how many times the man did that.

Carl didn't go hunting with Daryl; the redneck wasn't talking to him yet and he probably needed space. Carl was more than happy to oblige.

Then, one morning he found Daryl's bedroom door opened and saw the covers all tangled up and lying on the floor but no sign of the man himself.

"Huh. Now what?" Carl muttered to himself.

He curiously started to look around, feeling like he was playing hide and seek again, after all these years. He didn't remember the last time he had played that. Probably with Sophia.

" _Come out, come out wherever you are!_ " Carl hummed, checking every room in the second floor.

He came downstairs, feeling amused and excited.

There was a huge pot filled with corn boiling furiously. Carl cocked an eyebrow and turned the fire off. He checked that the corn was already ready and wondered what the hell that meant. He checked the rest of the floor and then the basement.

Still nothing.

Outside, their garden looked like it always did (Carl narrowed his eyes at it, like it was its fault he had to spend so many hours a day there). The oak and the grave where there too, without a change.

Where the fuck was Daryl?

Maybe he had done his "vanish for a week" stunt again after all these years, Carl mused. Or maybe he had simply gone hunting. It was earlier than usual, but one could never know with Daryl Dixon, right?

Then Carl noticed the big rocks that were half-surrounding his father's grave.

"Ok, what?!" He demanded to the stones.

The stones didn't answer.

Carl looked around and decided to sit there and wait for the crazy yokel to show up again.

Ten minutes later, the crazy yokel appeared from the other side of the house. His hands were wet and he was carrying another big rock over his shoulder that must have weighted only a little less than Carl himself.

The boy watched, open-mouthed as Daryl let it down with a 'thump' on the head of the tomb. Daryl then proceeded to turn it around so a smooth side was facing forward, emulating a headstone. When he was happy with his work Daryl nodded to himself and wiped his hands on his jeans. Then he studied the other rocks and turned around to go back wherever the hell he had come from.

"Daryl?" Carl called before the man disappeared from sight. "What are you doing?" He asked carefully.

Daryl jumped back when he heard his name. His head moved strangely as he tried to locate the source of the voice. When he saw Carl, though, he smiled, but it looked weird – twitchy and manic.

"Carl!" He called back, happily. "Wanna help?"

Carl was even more confused than he had been before.

"What the hell…?" He muttered to himself. "Daryl,  _what_  are you doing exactly?"

"Ima…" Daryl begun. He scratched his arm and then his neck. His hands were shaking a little. "I just… I thought it-it could use…  _something_ ,” he finished, pointing towards the tomb.

Carl frowned and cocked his head to the side, still trying to decide just what could this be. The sight of how Daryl was growing twitchier and twitchier (now he was practically bouncing up and down his heels) made him feel a little sick.

"Why don't you… come back inside?" Carl suggested.

Daryl shook his head, chewing on his dirty fingernails.

"Nah, Ima finish that first,” he replied and started walking away again.

"Wait! Daryl!" Carl called, but he was ignored. "Perfect,” he huffed to himself.

Carl shifted his gaze between the spot where Daryl had disappeared and the grave he was adorning like a druid temple. The young man sighed deeply and then shrugged. Either Daryl came back from whatever strange place he was in or he didn't. There was nothing for him to do.

Daryl finished surrounding Rick's tomb with rocks and then he busied himself putting them in what seemed to be symmetric fashion. Carl watched him silently from his spot on the garden. When he was finished and bored with dealing with weeds, he climbed onto the roof with a book and kept Daryl on his sight range.

Daryl kept on moving around and Carl was growing bored with it and with the book he knew from beginning to end by now. He decided to grab something to eat. It wasn't until Carl was done with his lunch and was washing to plates, humming distractedly, that he noticed that Daryl was missing again.

Ok, he was  _definitely_  getting bored with this now.

Luckily for Carl, the crazy yokel hadn't run off away again, instead, he was crouching in a corner of the porch and looked at Carl with big, panic filled eyes when he came out.

"What now, Daryl?" Carl asked.

The redneck only shivered when he heard the words. When Carl took a step forward, though, Daryl took out a knife from his belt and pointed it towards the younger man.

"Whoa, there. Calm down,” Carl said, putting his hands up. A part of him watched this form the outside (somewhere above his head) and chuckled slightly in surprise.

They stood very, very still for a long moment. Then Carl risked another step and the grip around the knife tightened.

"Daryl? What happened to you? It's me,” Carl said on a calm, reasonable voice.

Daryl merely blinked. It was only on that moment that Carl noticed his eyes were unfocused and strangely  _big_. No, not big – not all of them at least. Just his pupils. It looked almost painful.

"Daryl?" Carl tried once again. Nothing happened, nothing changed.

' _Great. My dad died, so now_  I  _have to watch over his whack-job of a boyfriend_.' Carl thought sourly. He took a step back and Daryl seemed to relax a little even if he didn't put the knife down.

Well, that solved it. Carl opened the door slowly and walked back in. He looked at Daryl for a few seconds before closing the door again.

"Just great."

Carl didn't check on Daryl again until an hour later, and by then the man had fallen asleep. Carl frowned but smiled none the less. He still didn't get what the hell was happening, and even though it was unnerving, it was a change from the usually mute, harsh Daryl that he had seen almost every single day for the past nine years.

Carl approached him carefully. He saw the knife on the ground and took it without tearing his eyes from the sleeping man. He placed the knife on the porch stairs, hidden from view, and then tried to wake Daryl up.

It took a lot of effort, but finally the redneck regained a little of conscience. When he did, his eyes were still unfocused and he still didn't seem to recognize Carl, who scoffed before pulling Daryl up. The man was heavy, his body mostly just muscles despite his age, and Carl – who had inherited the slim build from both of his parents – stumbled a little under his weight.

"C'mon, crazy old man. Let's get you to bed,” he mumbled, more to himself.

Daryl's head wobbled a little but he managed to stay upright and let Carl half-drag, half-lift him inside. Once they reached the stairs, though, Carl had to shake Daryl to make him cooperate a little more. There was no way he could carry the older man all the way upstairs.

Daryl pulled himself together just enough (and it looked as if it took him a lot of effort, but Daryl was nothing if not tough, even if he was old and crazy) and Carl was able to get him into his room without incidents and throw him unceremoniously on his unmade bed.

Carl took a pause to catch his breath and snorted when he noticed Daryl hadn't moved, not even an inch, from the place where he had fallen. He could be dead if it wasn't for the slight ups and downs from his chest caused by his superficial breathing. He took off Daryl's dirty boots (they were so worn out it was a miracle they still held together) and pulled the man's feet up on the bed.

Daryl was still unmoving. Carl frowned. He sat on the bed and carefully opened one of Daryl's eyes to see if his pupils were still as big as before. They weren't. It had to be a good sign.

Carl shook his head and stood up. He looked around, trying to decide what to do now when he saw the old plastic bag on the nightstand. It used to contain bottles filled with all kinds of pills, and was now mostly empty but for two bottles and that strange blue dust at the bottom.

Carl took the bag and studied it carefully, watching how the light reflected on the crystals, trying to guess what that was. He had no idea, but he was almost certain that it was what had caused Daryl's weird behavior. What else could have?

"You're too old for this, man. Honestly,” Carl whispered with a lopsided smile. "Thought you were gonna kill me, or yourself."

Carl looked down at the still unconscious Daryl. He studied that still way-too-young face that was covered in sweat and dirt, the unkempt beard, the messy light brown hair, that funny beauty mark over his lip. He wasn't ugly, Carl could admit that, even in his drug-induced after shock.

Carl pulled up a few covers and laughed quietly when he saw the holes in Daryl's socks again. They  _had_  to try and find some new clothes before the ones they had tore apart.

He sat on the bed again and pulled Daryl's hair away from his forehead to make sure the man didn't have a fever or something. Those blue little rocks and the pills were at least nine years old, so there was no telling just how bad they could be. Daryl's head was a little warm, but Carl didn't think he should worry about it yet. He decided to come back and make sure later.

"Serves you right,” Carl said quietly, absently putting a finger over Daryl's beauty mark and then tracing the line of his jaw. "You're lucky a walker didn't get you."

A cold, big, more calloused hand clasped his wrist and Carl jumped. Daryl opened his eyes and blinked a few times. Then his hand grabbed Carl's chin to make the boy look at him in the eye. And he _smiled_. His lips moved like he was trying to say something.

Carl's heart stopped and then it started to race. He yanked himself free from the touch and Daryl's fingers made a strangely loud sound when they scraped his two day beard. Carl practically run to the door and launched himself downstairs and then out of the house. Only then he could take a deep breath and try to calm down.

What the hell had been  _that_? Another side-effect from the drugs?

But something was starting to hurt in Carl's chest like nothing had hurt since the death of his mother and his little sister, which wasn't something he liked to think about. Carl punched his chest as if that way he could stop that feeling. Obviously, it didn't work.

He felt… angry and wounded. He felt betrayed. By whom, he didn't really know. It wasn't Daryl – or not just Daryl. The guy was high as a kite and probably didn't even know who he was. Probably. And that hurt too, and Carl didn't know why, and that scared the bejeezus out of him.

Carl started pacing, trying to calm the turmoil in his head and stop that frikin' feeling that his frikin' heart was shattering to pieces.

 _That look_.  _That smile_. That stupid, stupid smile and look. That terrifying smile, that heart-breaking smile.

They freaked him out and made his heart clench. They were  _love_ , dizzy and drunk, and that frightened him. Even though they weren't meant for him.

Not for him.

Well, of course not. Carl had never ever thought about Daryl that way (I mean,  _c'mon_! That was his father's boy toy! And he was thirty years older than him!), but he had never… No one had ever looked at him that way, besides his parents. No one ever would either, probably.

Because, honestly,  _who_  could? There were no living people that he knew. Sure, there had to be at least a few, somewhere, but probabilities were Carl would either get killed on the way there or by the same people he was looking for. People had turn into something almost as  _bad_  as the walkers.

So, yeah, Carl was probably going to keep on living alone for the rest of his life. And how long could that take, anyway?

Oh, but everybody loved his father! Everybody, even that insane, stupid hillbilly he had tamed and lured to his bed. And his mother. And Shane. And all the people in their group of survivors, even as they fell one by one.

And Carl. Carl had loved him too. Carl had wanted to be like him, but he had never been able to. His father had been just too  _good_ , damn it! Even when he did horrible things, he had the strength to feel bad about it. He had carried with such a big responsibility, both their group's survival and their deaths, and he did his best, he fought tooth and nail, he killed and cried for them. That was why people loved him. As hardened as Rick Grimes had become with the end of the world, as unstable as he had sometimes appeared, his heart was always good and kind to those he cared about.

And Carl couldn't do it. He couldn't care that much. He wasn't strong enough and it would just… break him. If he let himself  _love_  everybody like that, he would snap when they died. And they all died. Sooner rather than later.

"Why the hell did you have to die?" He snarled to his father's grave. "I can't deal with him! I can't… deal with…  _you_ , being dead! Christ, I'm this close to hanging myself from that freakin' oak tree just to stop being so goddamned  _bored_!"

What was the point in loving anyone, then? If they all left, if they all died.

What was the point of staying alive, for that matter? The only other person he knew was so heartbroken by Rick's death it was pathetic. What was left for Carl, then?

Carl dried a couple of betraying tears and sat at the foot of Rick's grave, on one of the rocks Daryl had so diligently brought for him, and looked up at the darkening sky.

Really, what was the point of anything anymore?

**Author's Note:**

> The blue little rocks inside Merle's drug stash are Methamphetamine, and it's the one made by the main character of Breaking Bad. It's nicknamed 'Blue Sky'. I learnt this on the Internet, 'cause I don't watch Breaking Bad. I know Norman Reedus likes it.
> 
> Carl's mind scared me a little. It was so detached and cold.
> 
> I edited writing and redaction, but also changed Michonne for Carol as the last female survivor, both because of her stunning role and bad-assery in the first ep of the 5th season, and because her death would be way more devastating for Daryl. Sorry, not sorry.
> 
> This is dedicated to trouver (formerly known as Dropkicking Bullet Shells), who said she would love to read this when I told her about the idea that had popped inside my head, even if when I tried to explain it without giving away too much, it sucked. And who pretty much always says she would love to read all the strange or lame ideas that my mind makes up.
> 
> To you, kid, for everything.


End file.
